'There is without doubt a life after politics. Right up until death,' said Jacques Chirac. Photograph: Patrick Kovarik/AFP/Getty

Jacques Chirac yesterday sparked a diplomatic controversy after saying that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be "very dangerous" and Tehran would be "razed" if it launched a nuclear strike on Israel. He later issued a humiliating retraction.

The French president's comments to journalists prompted speculation as to whether, aged 74 and in the waning months of his second - and probably his last term - he was losing his political touch or even his mental vigour. Some also questioned whether Mr Chirac had simply voiced a fear that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a foregone conclusion.

Mr Chirac prides himself on being an international statesman and is popular in France for his stance against the war in Iraq. He is determined to prove himself on the world stage before the April and May elections, but the international community was astounded by his comments which appeared on US front pages.

In the interview on Monday, which was mainly about climate change, reporters from the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur asked Mr Chirac about the current impasse over Iran's nuclear development.

Paris has steadfastly opposed any attempt by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, with Mr Chirac recently accusing Tehran of "feeding the world's apprehension" with its atomic programme.

But the president told the three reporters: "I would say that what is dangerous about this situation is not the fact of having a nuclear bomb. Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that's not very dangerous."

He said the danger lies in the chances of proliferation or an arms race in the Middle East should Iran build a nuclear bomb. The weapon would be useless for Iran because using it would mean an instant counterattack, he said. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 metres into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed."

Mr Chirac, who was hospitalised in 2005 for a suspected minor stroke, was reported to have appeared distracted at times during the interview, grasping for names and dates, according to the journalists.

The president called reporters back the next day to try to have his quotes retracted. "I should rather have paid attention to what I was saying and understood that perhaps I was on the record," Mr Chirac said in the second interview. "Sometimes one can drift off, when one believes there are no consequences ... I honestly believed that the questions aside from the environment were off the record."

On Wednesday night, attending a party in Paris to mark 30 years of the Pompidou centre, he appeared tired and frail.

Mr Chirac's office quickly switched to damage-limitation mode as foreign governments asked for official clarification, opposition politicians protested and experts speculated that he was either joking, being brutally honest, irresponsible or simply speaking off the cuff.

Mr Chirac's office issued a statement that "France, along with the international community, cannot accept the prospect of an Iran equipped with a nuclear weapon."

"There should not be a controversy on such a serious subject," it said.

France's allies downplayed the comments. "It is not a sentiment I share and from what I understand, the French president doesn't share it anymore either," said British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett. White House press secretary Tony Snow reiterated that Iran "should not have any nuclear weapons" and should suspend uranium enrichment. "That is not only the stated position of the United States but also its allies including France," he said.

"Chirac gave us a moment of honesty," said researcher Alireza Nourizadeh at the Centre for Arab-Iranian Studies in London.

But François Nicoullaud, who was France's ambassador to Tehran from 2001-2005, said Mr Chirac's comments lost political meaning once he formally withdrew them. "This wasn't one of those controlled slips - one of those little phrases that are dropped to see what effect it produces."

Words from the wise

Jacques Chirac is known for plain speaking, which sometimes lands him in a fix:

In 2004, during a spat over common agricultural policy, he reportedly told Tony Blair that he was "badly brought up".

In July 2005, he apparently thought he was off-microphone at a meeting in Russia when, describing Britain to Vladimir Putin and the then German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, he said: "You can't trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food." He later added: "The only thing they [the British] have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow."

In March 2003, Mr Chirac told the leaders of eastern Europe that they should have "shut up" rather than take America's side over the Iraq war.